THIRUVANANTHAPURAM, Jan 10: Veteran Malayalam playback singer P Jayachandran
passed away on Thursday at the age of 80 due to prolonged illness.
Ailing for a long time, he collapsed at his residence on Thursday evening and
was taken to a hospital in Thrissur where he died soon after.
Also called ‘Bhava Gayakan’ for his rendition of various emotions, Jayachandran
had recorded over 16,000 songs in Malayalam, Tamil, Telugu, Kannada and Hindi.
He was the recipient of the national award for the best male playback singer
in 1986. He began his career as a playback singer with Malayalam movie 'Kalithozhan'
in 1966. The first State award came with the movie 'Panitheeratha Veedu' in
1972, for the song ‘Neelagiriyude...’
Jayachandran collaborated with legendary composers G. Devarajan, MS Baburaj, V Dakshinamoorthy, K Raghavan, MK Arjunan, MS Viswanathan, Ilaiyaraaja, Koti, Shyam, AR Rahman, MM Keeravani, Vidyasagar and M Jayachandran.
The funeral will be held on Saturday.
He is survived by wife Lalitha, daughter Lakshmi and son Dinanathan, who is
also a singer.